My wife is big, BIG, into the circus she has going on the layout. Every show it gets a different interior set up, every show the tigers or lions get loose and the kids have a great time with the antics of critters and thier poor handlers.
So I was at a very small show in southern Wisconsin this past May when it occured to me that I could put a sound decoder with the music of a steam calliope playing in the background and the recordings I have of the circus huckster for th Clyde, Betty Cole Circus. The catch is, finding a programable decoder that will take MP3’s(or other formats) and speakers. I thought about putting it in the calliope, but the wagon is so small and so open that would be difficult to put in and even more difficult to hide. Powering it would be easy as I could just hard wire it the track and assign the decoder it’s own address.
So any recommendations on a programmable sound decoder?
Greenway Products has a Calliope module that would work. Take an old DCC decoder and trigger the sound module by using a light output from the DCC decoder. Mount the electronics under the layout and run the wires up into a speaker in the wagon. The speaker might be kind of small so consider a larger speaker under the layout with the volume turned down low enough so you have to be close to the display to hear the music. Greenway has sound bytes for their products.
I do believe someone sells digital modules that you can put your own music into but right now I cannot remember who the company is. No doubt some experimentation will be needed.
One unit you may be enterested in is the Pricom Dream Player. It use’s a SD card and will cycle through four sound tracts. I hooked mine up to a set of computer stereo speakers and added some relays to cycle through four different sets of speakers. I then recorded different sounds into left and right channels. I can have shop sounds inthe roundhouse while I have radio communications from the station. Another is machine shop sounds on the left channel while I have cows bawling at the slaughterhouse on the right. One of my favorites is storm/birds on the left and Church Bells and music on the right. My next adaptation will be some activity on the left and band concert on the right. It is tricky getting the recording sound equal on left and right but the possibilities are unlimited. Hope this helps. The calliope sound is another reason to add on to my layout. Darn! To many options and not enough room.